Wall St. climbs on earnings improvement

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) shortly after the opening bell in New York, U.S., October 17, 2016.
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

By Chuck Mikolajczak| NEW YORK

NEW YORK Wall Street advanced on Tuesday to give the S&P 500 its best day this month on the heels of solid earnings reports from names such as UnitedHealth and Netflix that put corporate profits on track to snap a four-quarter streak of declines.

Of the 52 S&P 500 companies that have reported results to date for the third quarter, 81 percent have reported earnings that topped average analyst estimates, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Third-quarter earnings are now expected to show growth of 0.2 percent, which would mark an end to the U.S. profit recession that began in the third quarter of 2015.

If the quarter stays on track, it will be the first time since the fourth-quarter of 2014 in which both earnings and revenue of S&P 500 companies increased.

Gains were broad, with each of the 11 major S&P sectors in positive territory, led by a 1.1 percent gain in healthcare .SPXHC, boosted by a UnitedHealth's (UNH.N) 6.9 percent jump after quarterly results and forecast.

Gains in the sector were curbed by a 2.6-percent decline in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), while Pfizer (PFE.N) gained 0.6 percent on plans to ship a cheaper biosimilar to Remicade, JNJ's top selling product. The news overshadowed J&J's slight earnings beat.

Netflix (NFLX.O) was the biggest advancer on the S&P 500, rising more than 19 percent after posting quarterly results and much higher-than-expected subscriber growth.

BATON ROUGE, La. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday said that China and other countries often devalue their currencies as the U.S. economy improves, vowing to combat currency manipulation and the dumping of foreign products into U.S. markets below cost.

President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday he would name Andrew Liveris, chairman and chief executive of Dow Chemical Co, to head the Manufacturing Council, a private sector group that advises the U.S. secretary of commerce.